Blog #3 with Jean-Sebastien, Studio Ten.

Houdini as my tango mentor?

Apparently. By all counts, he was a remarkable man accomplishing incredibly complicated maneuvers without breathing for three plus minutes. Not tango exactly (he was wrapped up in 30' of chain at the bottom of a water tank) but his antics bear uncanny resemblance to my efforts on the dance floor.

“Breathe, for God’s sake," Jean-Sebastien exhorts. Apparently I am so focused on executing complicated maneuvers, I have stopped breathing: the Houdini effect.

This is helpful. I seldom get attention drawn to my breathing by a tango teacher. Breathing is important; unlike Houdini I can’t go an entire 3.5 minutes without stopping to catch my breath. (He only did it once and vowed never again.)

Which is what has appealed to me about tango from the beginning. Unlike milonga, it invites those pauses - the fluctuating tempo, the mood shifts, the steps and sequences which start and stop, begin and end.

So why is it that , in tango I have to continually relearn what I have been doing quite competently and unconsciously my entire life? Like walking. Like breathing.

Here is a possible explanation: In tango, my unconscious being-in-self becomes translated into conscious self-awareness. I start to think about things that up to now, I have been doing instinctively.

This is a good thing as the primary process of developing character  is to initiate communication between the conscious and the unconscious.

Which explains the emergence of the Houdini effect in the middle of my dance. Not that I forget to breathe exactly, but that my breathing is shallow, tense, constricted.

Which is not a good thing. It separates me from the dance, from myself and from my partner.

I suggest that deep breathing is more critical to tango than balanced walking. In fact, if I remember to breathe deeply throughout my dancing I instinctively correct most of my balance problems.

There are reasons for this. Stay tuned. Subscribe.